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Sunday, November 18, 2012

Author Interview: Margi Evans

Today I would like to welcome Margi Evans, author of the Mist Trilogy to the blog.

When did
you first know you wanted to write?

I was
born with two things: Manure in my blood and ink in my veins! As far back as I
can remember, I have loved horses and writing. How lucky am I to get to combine
those two passions!

As a
child, I played with my Breyer horses or wrote stories about horses. As I grew
older, my interest in writing became less fun as I applied it to writing
curriculum for the school district.

A move
to Colorado in 1995 enabled me to get horse property and return to my riding.
My desire to find trails to ride led to my non-fiction books: Riding Colorado (2005,) Riding Colorado II (2007) and RidingColorado III (in the works.)

Meanwhile,
I was raising five wonderful children and focused most of my creativity on them…from
planning fun activities to coaching Odyssey of the Mind (Om) and Destination
Imagination (DI) teams. When I was down to just one teenager left in the house,
I finally had time to begin writing the fantasy that had been floating around
in my brain: The Mist Trilogy. The
first of the trilogy, Behind the Mist,
was released in 2011 and the second, Mists
of Darkness is being released in early January but will be available for
early purchase in December on the website: www.behindthemist.com.

Which authors
inspire you the most?

Fantasy
is my favorite genre and of those fantasy books that I love, J.K Rowling is my
favorite. She is amazing. Not only is she creative, she is funny! Also, my Mist Trilogy has a lot of spiritual
symbolism in it so you can probably guess that I love C.S. Lewis as well. One
reviewer actually said that I was this generation’s C.S. Lewis. I was thrilled!
He couldn’t have given me a greater compliment.

How did
you get the inspiration for your novel?

Horses
are my inspiration. I think everyone can relate to that, even if they are a bit
afraid of horses. (I have never felt fear when I was around horses but I
realize that some people do.) Horses are so beautiful, magnificent really, that
they are the subject of many art forms from literature to painting to movies.

What is
your favorite part about being an author?

I love
creativity, hence the reason I so enjoyed coaching OM and DI teams for 17
years. That is a creative problem solving competition for teams of 5 to 7 kids
for those of you who don’t know about those organizations. I grew up in a
creative household where the arts were encouraged. My mother taught ballet and
my grandmother and aunts were artists. While I enjoyed dancing and art, it was
writing that drew me in. I love playing with words to try to describe what I am
imagining.

What is
your least favorite part about being an author?

It can
be a bit lonely working away all by yourself at your computer for hours on end.
You also have to be very thick-skinned as it hurts when agents or publishers
turn down your work or reviewers criticize it.

Could
you write a bit about what your publication process was like?

The Riding Colorado books have all been
self-published and have been easy to market because I know who the audience is…horsemen
and women in the Denver area. I know where that market has to go all the time…tack
and feed stores. So, all I had to do was pick a printer that did quality work
then get the books to the stores. Easy!

Jazz (The Star of the Book)

The Mist Trilogy is a
different story. The target audience for those books is the middle-grade reader
who enjoys either fantasy or horse stories. The geographic area is nationwide.
Obviously, I needed to turn that over to professionals to distribute. I was
fortunate to have an investor who loved the story and got it published.
However, regardless of how big the publishing house is, they all expect the
author to do a lot of marketing themselves. Many authors hate this but I think
it is fun. I love talking to people about my books. I love doing book signings
and author visits to schools.

With
the advent of e-books, the publishing world is clearly changing. My publisher
wants me to get the book in as many formats as possible. So, Behind the Mist and Mists of Darkness are both available as e-books. Behind the Mist is also being put into
an audio book by a Colorado recording studio. I am so excited about that because
audio books can reach a younger audience.
And it sounds so-o-o-o-o-o-o cool.

Do you
have any upcoming projects?

I am
currently working on Riding Colorado III
and this one will include over-night trips around the state. I am also
preparing the final book of the Mist
Trilogy: The Rising Mist, and I just finished the manuscript for a juvenile
fantasy about trolls and leprechauns that I am excited about. So, yes, I have a
lot of things that I am having fun with.

Describe
in three or less sentences what makes your book unique and why a reader should
buy it.

The Mist Trilogy is an original look at the
role of unicorns and animals in the after-life. It combines the classic fantasy
struggle of good versus evil using unique characters while teaching good values
to the middle-grade reader and adults love it, too!